1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to magnetic tape recorders, especially to those designed for use in continuous duty, data logging applications.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Voice-activated, voice logging recorders are widely used in monitoring such communications as those involving police, fire and aircraft and in providing accurate records of business meetings, legal proceedings, educational material, etc. Such recorders generally utilize one or more decks which are dedicated to logging incoming data, i.e., recording the incoming data together with a time code to enable subsequent retrieval of both the data and knowledge of the time at which it was recorded. When it was desired to play back a recently recorded message, the recorded tape would be replaced by a fresh tape and taken to a playback unit. The tape would there be rewound and the beginning of the desired message located by trial and error. Since there was often an emergency, the inability to quickly obtain the information in the message has been quite frustrating. These dedicated decks have been unuseable for providing a record from which could be recalled recently recorded data in a manner in which the beginning of each recorded message could be readily accessed without interrupting the logging of newly received data onto the decks.